Alabama Fall Camp Update | Jalen Milroe’s Leadership Under Coach Cullen DeBoer | August 13, 2024
Georgia and Texas are currently considered the top teams in their conferences, but which teams have a good chance of challenging them in the SEC? Joel Klatt has a pretty obvious answer.
Klatt was asked on the show what team poses the biggest threat to the Bulldogs and Longhorns in 2024. To him, that team is clearly Alabama.
“Who’s the threat? So what team do we believe can come out on top and be a threat to those two teams? The answer is Alabama,” Klatt said.
Everyone knows the changes that took place in Tuscaloosa this offseason following the retirement of Nick Saban, whose dominating 17-year run came to an end when the team hired Cullen DeBoer as his replacement.
But while that may be true, the Tide has history in this conversation. Enough players are coming back after Saban’s tenure to know who they are, what they do, and where the level is. That’s why they won’t be bothered to play top-tier teams like Georgia or Texas, especially since Alabama is the only team that hasn’t played, let alone beat, the Tide in the past three seasons.
“It doesn’t matter if you had Alabama ranked there in the preseason, the answer is Alabama. For example, Ole Miss is No. 5 and Alabama is behind them, but it’s Alabama that’s the threat. It’s similar to Michigan being a threat in the Big Ten, because Alabama believes they’re a threat,” Klatt said. “And they’ve done it. They’ve done it.”
“You can say whatever you want about Cullen DeBoer coming in and this new thing happening. Georgia still has the Alabama problem. Bulldog fans don’t want to hear it, but they’ve had it. You can call it the Nick Saban problem. The Tide problem. You know they’re bad at washing,” Klatt continued. “Alabama never loses. Their roster is built to play at the highest level. Their players have played at the highest level. They just beat Georgia last year, they just made the playoffs, they just got fourth down in the Rose Bowl to beat the team that will eventually become national champions. They’re not going to back down for a second.”
This is different from the other options Klatt considered in Ole Miss and Missouri, neither of which have yet proven themselves fully capable of handling the best teams, whereas DeBoer and Alabama have proven they can do so in their respective histories even before coming together.
“You can’t say that about the other two teams I’ve looked at here – Ole Miss and Missouri,” Klatt explained. “The problem is, neither team has done it against those teams.”
“Are they a real threat to the top two teams? I don’t know. I haven’t seen them so I don’t know. They’re going to have to overcome something. They’re going to have to do something they’ve never done before. Alabama isn’t like that even with Karen DeBoer,” Klatt said. “Kalen DeBoer just won a conference title. As a head coach, he can say he won a national title in Sioux Falls, won a conference championship in the Pac-12 and played in a national championship. Alabama players can sit back and say they beat Georgia in the SEC championship.”
The Crimson Tide won’t necessarily be the same as they were under Coach Saban, and that will be true until the DeBoer era begins and they prove otherwise.
But among the other contenders in this year’s Southeastern Conference, Klatt believes Alabama has enough experience and a proven track record to challenge Georgia and Texas in 2024.
“They believe they can do it, and that’s why they’re the biggest threat to the SEC,” Klatt said.
